E-Racing Race Fairing Review

[Trip]

Here is a review of eracing bodywork I worked on, but never posted...it's not been checked for errors and I wrote it quick....

Review: E-Racings Race Bodywork

When taking a bike to the race track, one of the things that worry us is damaging our nice street plastics. Some of us don't want to spend a fortune to get track plastics that cost as much to replace our street plastics.

Well a company located in California came up with the solution to this problem:



MOUNTING
This mounting method was provided to me by a track rider who is famaliar with mounting plastics:

1. Mate the upper and lower while off the bike and drill holes in the upper and lower and secure together with the Duzs fasteners. Make up the windshield at this point too as it gives curve to the upper where it will secure to the fairing stay. Separate the upper and lower in preparation for step 2.

2. Put the belly pan (lower) under the engine and have a friend hold the upper roughly in place. Secure together with the Duzs fasteners.

3. Rotate the upper/lower assembly into place so you can line up and drill holes where the upper is secured to the main frame points. (1 on each side). Loosly secure in place with screws.

4. Rotate the fairing assembly upwards until you can get the fairing stay locations marked. Drill the upper and secure loosely at these two points. Now the fairing is secured at 4 points. Fairing stay (2) and main spars (2).

5. Tighten the fittings and see if the remaining holes line up. They won't but on good quality plastics they'll be close. Slightly loosen the four points and "adjust the fit" as needed. Once satisfied, retighten then drill all the remaining mounting locations.

This method will give you the best compromise fit and will minimize the gapping most amateurs get between the upper and lower seam. However, being an amateur, my gaps were considerable and the learning process was steep. I recommend getting someone experienced to help you if this is your first try, especially if you are as inept as me with tools. The fitting was a little iffy at some points and needed a little trimming, but overall a good fit.

For the Dzus fasteners, I went with the slip on/d ring variety from superbikesupply.com. It was easy to install these as opposed to the rivet variety, since you did not need a rivet gun to mount them. I needed 8 Dzus fasteners for my bodywork, but standard is around 6. E-racings also sells Dzus fasteners and can advise you on the number you need to have for mounting the bodywork.


PAINTING
Yeah, I am a terrible painter. I tried my hand at it with rattle cans. The e-racing fairings come primered ready to paint, but they are a little rough. Sanding and reprimering it would be the way to go if you want them to look clean. I did not have time for this and just was going to do a quick rattle job anyway, so I just painted them. I thought I did a decent job considering I have very little artistic talent. However, the clear coat I used was some triple layer stuff that became a sticky mess after I spilt some gas on it at the track. Make sure you buy quality paint and clear coat if you attempt to paint them yourself.


AT THE TRACK
So I loaded the new plastics up on a trailer and my mounts proved their worth on lots of interstate traveling. The mount points held well and the glass survived their first high wind test. It was now time to get them on the track.

The first session at CMP was my first time in the seat with the plastics on the bike. The felt just as good as the stock plastics. I was more than impressed as to how well they were secured to the bike. I did not crash test this product, so cannot give a good account of how well they hold up in a crash.


OVERALL ANALYSIS
The quality of the bodywork is not the best on the market, but with a little trimming and taking your time with the mounting will give you a great fit and be very well secured to the bike. Since no crash test was conducted, I can not speak for how well they would hold up in an incident.

Mounting the bodywork did take a little prodding and poking to get them to line up as well as a little trimming, but overall a good clean look can be achieve with these.


The cost of the bodywork is pretty much second to none in the market for the quality they deliver. I have seen top notch bodywork look cheaper than what was shipped to my door for such an affordable price. This company makes race bodywork affordable for the masses with replacement pieces very inexpensive to replace in the event of a devastating crash. The cost of my body work was $400 shipped to my door with similar companies pricing between $650 - $800 for the same quality.

I contacted E-Racing beforehand to ask questions and get an idea for their customer service and was treated well. One issue I did run into was the saleswoman did not accurately know the amount of dzus fasteners I would need for this project. Typical bodywork kits require 6 fasteners while this one required 8. She informed me that I would need 6. Fortunately, the front page of the E-Racing site displayed a mounted version of my kit and I was able to foresee the need for 8 dzus fasteners and purchase accordingly.

E-Racing also included in the package a free E-Racing t-shirt and 2 vinyl E-Racing stickers (1 black, 1 white.)

I am very happy with the quality and cost of this project and would repurchase these if given the opportunity to repeat this project again.


The Box o'Fiberglass:


Race glass removed from the box:


Removed all the street plastics:


I got a little carried away and removed the wheels too:


Used zipties to hold the fairing while fitting it:


Drill and mounted the dzus fasteners before painting:


Completely fitted plastics, now to take em off again and paint:


Painting has begun, a couple coats of paint and a couple coats of clear coat = lots of rattle cans:




All painted and remounted, ready for the track:


At the track: